Illustrative worked example. This is a realistic brief run through Echo using the same method a real report uses — not an account of a named past client. See every case study for more, including which of these are real, permissioned projects as they're added.
The brief
A university estates team asked for options on a seminar room in a 1990s teaching block, after noticing it was consistently the least-booked room of its size on the timetabling system. Staff running small-group discussion teaching — the room's actual intended use — had been quietly avoiding it in favour of rooms two floors up, without ever formally logging a complaint.
Seminar room, first floor
7.5 × 6 × 3 m, about 135 m³ — painted plasterboard walls, full-height glass wall to the corridor, vinyl floor, plasterboard ceiling.
Hard vinyl, plasterboard on every surface and a full glass wall put the room at roughly 0.95 seconds — well past what a discussion-format room needs, and consistent with staff preferring to walk further to a better one rather than say why.
The standard, and the target
BB93 is written for schools, not universities, so it isn't formally the standard here — but it's the nearest honest reference for a room whose actual use (spoken discussion among a small group) is functionally identical to a school teaching space, and BB93 Table 6’s 0.6-second primary new-build figure was used as the practical target — the tightest of the Table 6 values, chosen deliberately rather than the more forgiving refurbishment ones.
The constraint
The glass wall to the corridor was explicit in the brief as untouchable — it's part of the building's fire strategy (a protected escape route relies on the corridor being visible) and a listed architectural feature of the block. Any fix had to work with a full glass wall on one side permanently reflective.
The decision
With one wall fixed as fully reflective, the other three surfaces had to do proportionally more: ceiling rafts covering most of the plasterboard ceiling, full carpet tile over the vinyl, and fabric wall panels on the two solid walls opposite the glass.
Every route considered, vendor-neutral — we don't sell any of it.
- Ceiling raftsabout 38 m²
The largest single contribution, carrying more of the load since the glass wall couldn't help.
- Fabric wall panels, two solid wallsabout 22 m²
Positioned opposite the glass wall to balance the one surface that couldn't be treated.
- Full carpet tile over the vinyl45 m²
Would also be expected to reduce chair-scrape noise during discussion, a secondary issue nobody had raised separately.
The outcome
The model predicts the combination would bring the room to roughly 0.58 seconds, predicted to reach the 0.6-second reference figure even with one full wall left untreated. BB93 is used here as a reference only. This is a design-stage prediction for an illustrative room, not a measured result.
Indicative figures for this example, from the same method a real report uses. Not a measured survey and not a compliance certificate — where one is required, that's a survey to BS EN ISO 3382-2.
Now do it for your room.
Four questions, about a minute. Free to see whether you have a problem.
Check my room →Questions people ask
Why not just replace the glass with an acoustic-rated pane?
It would help, but it wasn't the constraint here — the glass had to stay for fire-strategy and listing reasons, not just cost, so a like-for-like swap wasn't actually an option to cost.
Is BB93 even the right standard for a university room?
Formally, no — there's no equivalent mandatory standard for higher education in the UK. It's used here because the room's function is the same as a school teaching space, and having some published reference beats inventing a number.
Would this work for a lecture theatre instead of a seminar room?
No — a lecture theatre is a different acoustic problem (one speaker, many listeners, often amplified) and would be assessed against different criteria entirely.